by Anne Schraff
“You guys wanna get busted for fighting?” Jaris yelled. “If the teachers see you chicks going at each other, you’re both toast!”
Jasmine touched her red and smarting face, and she snarled a warning to Sami. “Sami Archer, if you ever hit me again, I swear I’ll break your fat neck. You just stay away from me if you don’t want big trouble.”
“You ain’t getting by with insulting my mom,” Sami yelled back. “You can insult me all you want, but my mom is off limits, girl. Nobody insults my mom without getting bruised!”
“Cool it, girls!” Jaris insisted. “You’re lucky no teacher was around.”
Jasmine glared at Jaris, “You know what, Jaris? Your girlfriend, Sereeta, she was helping wave those signs for the car wash. I saw her near the cash box when Quincy’s mother was working it,” she said. “She coulda helped herself to the cash box real easy.”
“You’re reaching, Jasmine,” Jaris responded. “You’re mad at me because Sami is my friend.”
“My mother did a good job on her turn with the cash box,” Jasmine asserted. “My mother worked hard. Quincy’s mom’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you get my meaning. Anything coulda got by her.”
The other students disappeared, disappointed that the catfight didn’t go on longer. Derrick Shaw shook his head and smiled, “Man, when girls go at it, it’s something else. You see guys fightin’ and it’s nothin’ compared to a coupla chicks going head to head.”
Just before the last bell, the principal of Tubman High issued a statement over the PA system:
We are very sorry to tell our students and their parents that there has been a rash of thefts from purses at our school. Apparently someone has also stolen partial proceeds from the cheerleader’s benefit car wash held on Saturday. We cannot overemphasize the need to keep a close watch on all valuables. If you have any information concerning these unfortunate events, please come to the office. Your identity will be kept confidential.
Leaving the school building, Jaris noticed Quincy Pierce standing on the edge of the campus. He looked very upset. As Jaris went by and nodded to him, Quincy said, “I suppose you think it’s my mom’s fault too. Everybody’s blaming my mom that the cheerleader money is gone.”
“No,” Jaris protested, “I don’t think anything. I don’t know enough about it.”
“They don’t like us around here,” Quincy went on, “my folks and me. I was nearby when both girls got their purses rifled, and my mom was watching the money at the car wash. Kids are thinking me and my mom are thieves or something. We’re new around here, and we don’t live in a nice house. People look down on us. It’s easy to think we’re poor, so we’re probably thieves too. My folks are really struggling. Dad’s been sick, and we got a lot of doctor and hospital bills we can’t pay. We got bill collectors hounding us all the time. Yeah, we got problems, but that doesn’t mean we’re crooks.”
Jaris tried to make him feel better. “Probably whoever is doing the stealing doesn’t even need the money. They’re probably doing it for kicks. Lotta shoplifters are like that. They take stuff because they can.”
An old car rattled up to them.
“That’s my mom,” Quincy explained. “She’s picking me up today ’cause Dad’s in the hospital and we’re visiting him.”
Jaris walked over to the car window. “Hello Mrs. Pierce,” Jaris said, “I hope your husband is better soon.”
“Thanks,” the weary looking woman at the wheel sighed, “but nothin’ goin’ good for us. Lordy, my man’s sick, and bills all over like cockroaches. I volunteered to help with that school car wash, and look what’s come ‘a that. It’s like a curse is on us or sump’n. It’s enough to make you wanna pack it in and lay down by the river and die. I’m no good at keepin’ money straight. Tens and fives all look alike. Pretty little teenager come over to try to sort things out, putting the money in different compartments, but it was too late.”
“Your girlfriend, Sereeta Prince,” Quincy explained. “That’s who she’s talking about. She came over to help Mom. She’s a nice girl. I bought her an orange juice on that hot day. Course, you never can tell. Maybe she’s not as nice as she looks . . . maybe she wasn’t really helping Mom.”
Quincy drove off with his mother, leaving Jaris standing at the curb with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t a good thing that Sereeta tried to sort the money. What if some of the kids who mistrusted her anyway saw her and started spreading more gossip?
Jaris walked across the campus, wondering if Sereeta was already on her way home. She often walked, as Jaris did. He hoped she had not taken the long way, behind the pizza place, to that vacant field with the ruins of the burned house.
Jaris started home, at first jogging and hoping to catch up to Sereeta. He was in luck. He saw her just ahead, walking along. “Hey Sereeta!” he shouted. “Wait up.”
Sereeta stopped and waited for him. She told him earlier, in American history, that things at her house had settled down. Mom had a bad hangover, but Perry was home. Things were relatively quiet. But Jaris had not talked to Sereeta yet about the missing car wash money.
“Yeah, how awful,” she remarked about the missing car wash money. “I tried to help Mrs. Pierce when I saw bills flying all over the blacktop. I tried to explain to her how to put the different denominations in the compartments. I thought I was doing a good thing. Now I’m not so sure. I mean, there’s enough gossip about me already.”
“Probably the money just blew away,” Jaris suggested.
“Jaris, remember that story ‘The String’ that we read in Mr. Pippin’s class at the beginning of the year?” Sereeta asked.
“Yeah, I remember,” Jaris responded. “The harness maker guy stopped to pick up a piece of string and just at that time some guy lost his pocketbook.”
“Right,” Sereeta went on, “and people were looking and when the harness maker stooped, they just figured he was picking up the pocketbook to steal it. Well, he wasn’t, but everybody started seeing him as a thief. And then in the story, remember? The guy found his pocketbook and everybody knew the harness maker hadn’t taken it, but yet they continued to call him a thief. He had just lost his reputation and he couldn’t get it back.”
“I see where you’re going with this, Sereeta,” Jaris commented, “but that was just a story.”
“Yeah, but what is Mr. Pippin always saying? Art imitates life. I just feel like everybody wants to believe I’m involved in this stupid stuff at school,” Sereeta protested.
“No, they don’t,” Jaris insisted. “A few kids—”
“Do you remember how the harness maker’s story ended?” Sereeta interrupted. “He couldn’t face what had happened so he went to bed and died.”
“Come on, Sereeta!” Jaris demanded. “They’re going to get to the bottom of this thieving stuff, and then we’ll all know what happened.”
They continued walking. Across the street was the vacant lot with the burned houses. Sereeta glanced in that direction and said, “I found an old history book with local lore in it. It told all about this neighborhood, how the streets are named for Indian tribes . . . and then it tells about that burned house.”
“Yeah?” Jaris said, not sure he wanted to hear the story.
“A young couple built the house. It was one of the first houses around here. They’d been married just a few months when the girl got sick. She knew she was very sick, but she didn’t have the heart to tell her husband because they were so much in love. She knew it’d hurt him terribly. They were really young, like teenagers . . . And she agonized over how she’d tell him. So she decided she’d cook a dinner for him, a nice dinner, and afterward she’d tell him she was going to die. She put all this in her diary and she kept the diary in the concrete floor, in a secret block. But then something happened with the stove while she was cooking dinner, and the house burned down. They both died that night. The house was gone, but the foundation stones survived, and they found the diary years later. Th
ey put the story in this book.”
“That’s a sad story,” Jaris commented.
“No, it’s not really,” Sereeta objected. “She never had to tell him she was dying. He never had to be hurt in that way. That’s why sometimes when I feel their spirits, I sense a peace and happiness.”
Jaris stopped walking. He turned to Sereeta and took her hands in his. “Babe, I worry about you sometimes. Do you know that? I spend a lot of time worrying about you because sometimes you seem very sad and gloomy.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Sereeta protested. “I’m all right.”
“I don’t think so,” Jaris insisted. “I care about you a lot, but you won’t really talk to me. I know the way it is with your family has hurt you a lot, and I can’t do anything about that. But you know, if you feel really desperate, you need to come to me and not ever do stupid things. We can be together and forget about the stupid stuff, you know? Sometimes when my Pop gets really down about his place in life, how his dreams all got busted, it gets me down too. And what’s helped me get out of the dark place I fall into is being with you, Sereeta. You lift me up. I want to do that for you, babe. You hear what I’m telling you?”
“I’m glad I’ve made you happier,” Sereeta said.
“I want to make you happier too, babe,” Jaris insisted.
“You do,” she replied.
“But not enough,” Jaris said. He wanted to ask why she got so desperate that she cut herself and didn’t come to him. But he couldn’t bring that up. “You gotta lean on me, babe. When you’re down, don’t go sit in some empty field and look at burned stones and think about sad stuff that happened a hundred years ago. Think of you and me.”
“I will,” Sereeta promised.
They walked on, beyond the field, to the corner of Sereeta’s street. They walked down the street, and near her house they stopped. The house was lit up.
“See, it’s all okay tonight,” Jaris declared. He drew Sereeta close to him and kissed her. She kissed him back, lingering in the moment.
“Remember what I told you in that hospital room when you gave me the earrings, Jaris?” she asked.
“Yeah, you said you loved me,” he said.
“I do,” she said softly, before turning up the flagstone walk to her door.
In the twilighted neighborhood, Jaris continued on to his house, about a mile from Sereeta’s. He jogged part of the way. He felt a little better. Sereeta seemed calmer, more at peace.
As he ran, he figured surely everybody at school would be extra careful about leaving purses and wallets lying around. Whoever the thief was would get discouraged and maybe stop stealing. Then the thing would blow over. The thief had to know that you can’t keep on ripping people off at the same location and avoid being caught.
When Jaris got home, Mom was working on the computer and Pop was working late at the garage. “Honey!” Mom called out to Jaris when she heard the door close. “Just get something in the freezer for you and Chelsea, will you? I’m really hammered on this work. I got some new stuff—fish sticks and mashed potatoes. They looked really good. You could cup up a melon too. Thanks!”
Jaris and Chelsea looked in the refrigerator together. Jaris assessed the dinner situation: “Okay, cardboard chicken or plywood turkey or those new fish sticks. I bet they taste just like the chicken and the turkey. It’s your call, chili pepper.”
Chelsea giggled. “Look, some old pizza is left over. Couldn’t we warm it up? Even if it burns, it’s better than that other stuff.”
“You got it, girl,” Jaris said. “Warmed over pizza it is. Old pizza pie rules.” He chopped up the melon to eat with the pizza. It turned out to be a pretty nice meal, especially when Jaris added vanilla ice cream to the cut-up fruit.
As they sat eating, Chelsea chattered to Jaris. “You know that girl in your school who lost the hundred dollars? Ryann Kern? Well, her sister goes to my school. Her name is Gloria. She told me that her mom and dad felt so bad about Ryann losing the hundred dollars that they gave her another hundred. Her dad had to borrow it from the credit union so Ryann could go get her summer clothes. Gloria was really freaked out about that. She said if Ryann is too stupid to hang on to a hundred dollars, then she should go without new summer clothes and wear last summer’s clothes.”
“I’m with Gloria,” Jaris agreed, between munches.
“You know what else?” Chelsea went on. “That Liza Ann who lost the twenty-five when somebody reached in her purse? She’s Ryann’s and Gloria’s cousin. She went crying to her parents sayin’ her cousin got the money back from her parents. She wanted her twenty-five back. But her mom told her to go jump in the creek—that next time maybe she’ll watch her money better.” Chelsea laughed.
“Good for Liza Ann’s parents,” Jaris said.
“I wonder who stole the cheerleader’s money, Jare,” Chelsea mused. “Do you think the same crook who got money from those girls’ purses took the car wash money?”
“I don’t know,” Jaris replied. “It’s sure got a lot of kids upset. Everybody’s looking over their shoulders all the time and hanging on extra tight to their stuff.”
“Somebody at my school said Sereeta took the stuff,” Chelsea remarked. “But I told her she was a dirty liar.”
CHAPTER FIVE
On Friday, Jaris heard angry voices coming from the lunch area near the eucalyptus trees. Two guys seemed to be hotly arguing under the trees. As Jaris drew closer, he made out Marko Lane’s angry voice and Quincy Pierce’s defensive tone. It sounded like Marko was getting the best of the argument.
“Listen up, dude,” Marko was demanding. “My chick don’t like her mom gettin’ in hot water over this. Jasmine is real ticked that her mom is takin’ the heat over that missing car wash money. Your old lady was on duty when the money disappeared, man. Jasmine’s mom is a smart lady with an office job. She knows how to keep money straight. Either your mom took the money to pay all those bills you guys got, or else—”
“My mom is no thief,” Quincy said heatedly. “She doesn’t handle money. She’s a cleaning lady. She’s not used to having money coming at her that fast—”
“Okay,” Marko interrupted, “then why did she offer to work at the car wash in the first place? If she’s so stupid she can’t count money, she got no business doin’ the job, dude.”
“She’s not stupid!” Quincy groaned. “She’s just not good at some things. Anyway—what about Sereeta who came to help her? Maybe she took the money.”
Jaris froze. Quincy was ready to throw Sereeta to the wolves to get his mother off the hook. Quincy’s voice went on eagerly. “Sereeta Prince, she was handling all the money and telling Mom what to do. But maybe she saw all that money and just . . . took . . . some . . .”
Jaris stepped up and announced, “You guys, Sereeta was trying to be helpful. She wouldn’t take a nickel of anybody’s money.”
“That’s what you say, dude,” Marko sneered, “’cause she’s your chick now. But two hundred dollars is missing from that money box. So Jasmine’s mom got a call from the cheerleader coach that she needs to come in and explain what all was going on. Jasmine’s mom has a lot of pride, and she don’t like this one bit. I’m wanting to help my chick. You get my meaning?”
“You can’t blame it on Sereeta,” Jaris insisted. “Maybe people were giving out the wrong change. Maybe somebody handed in a ten, and somebody gave them back a twenty.”
“My mother wouldn’t have made that many mistakes,” Quincy argued. “Not two hundred dollars worth.” Quincy looked miserable. He was a nice guy. He didn’t want to get Sereeta in trouble. He liked her. But he was afraid the school people would come after his mother and make her come up with the missing two hundred dollars. The Pierce family didn’t have that kind of money. They couldn’t spare twenty dollars. Quincy thought it just wasn’t fair. His mother, with all her troubles, had volunteered her time to help out with a school project. Now they were going to interview her along with Jasmine’s mother.
“Sereeta said she saw bills flying all over the parking lot when she walked up,” Jaris said.
“My mom wouldn’t have let that happen!” Quincy seemed near tears.
“Well,” Marko snarled, “I’m tellin’ you one thing. Some stupid lady who can’t count to ten, and a thievin’ chick ain’t gonna be the duo that brings down Jasmine’s mom. When Jasmine’s mom goes in to talk to those people, she’s gonna be up front. She’s gonna say this Mrs. Pierce is too dumb to come in outta the rain, and they had no business letting her handle the money. And then along comes this Sereeta chick to get her hands in the bills up to her elbows, and it was bad all around.”
Jaris felt sick. Marko was out to protect Jasmine’s mother, and Quincy was protecting his mom. The both of them had to somehow put the blame on Sereeta, to make it look like she’d helped herself to two hundred dollars that belonged to the Tubman cheerleaders.
At that moment, Jaris remembered that story “The String.” Sereeta’s fear seemed to be coming true after all. Innocence was no protection for the harness maker in the story, and it seemed no protection for Sereeta either.
That same morning, Quincy’s mother had to take time off from work to talk to the physical education department chairman, who was handling the investigation. The school officials had not yet contacted the police because they were not sure if there had been an error in counting the money or a theft. Mrs. Pierce admitted that she was confused while she handled the money, but she swore that she could not have made two hundred dollars worth of mistakes. Then Jasmine’s mother, sharp looking in black slacks and a red sweater, appeared. She marched into the office like a soldier going on duty. Jaris learned later that she had laid the blame on Mrs. Pierce and Sereeta, not herself.